Today we’re going to talk about how to loosen up in our art. I know a lot of us struggle to have a sense of freshness and energy in our work, especially as we develop a piece from looser sketch to the more finished piece. What often happens is that a sketch starts off feeling loose and promises something better than what we end up with. It’s very common to find that we like our sketches more than the final illustration. Why is that? And how, if at all, can we achieve the same loose feeling of our sketches in our final art?

In this episode, I’m going to share my own story of how I wrestled with this question — of having a more spontaneous feeling to my work versus something more planned out — and why, over time, for ME my work has seemed to head more in the scripted, planned out direction — and why I’m okay with that. At the same time, I still try to build in as much looseness as I can, and at the end of the episode I’ll share some tips on how to do that.